Organic Waste to Energy Recycling Center, Queens, NYC

This studio proposes locating an Organic Waste-to-Energy and Recycling Center (OWERC), incorporating a public program; a public pool facility, at Anable Basin, in Queens. This urban site presents considerable challenges: It’s located adjacent to an industrial neighborhood and is opposite the recently constructed Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park, a four-acre memorial to Franklin D. Roosevelt that celebrates the Four Freedoms he articulated in his 1941 State of the Union address. It is within clear view of Manhattan and the UN. What happens/what must happen when we bring industrial buildings, typically sited on the outskirts of the city, into the city? Additional public programming? Higher levels of design thinking, materials and sitework? We want residents to be aware of the amount of waste we produce and the processes that must be undertaken to process that waste. In order to achieve a building solution, we will take on higher levels of computational design, which contributed to the overall formal character and programmatic spaces typically associated with urban buildings.